Concerning the Associated Press, this is an interesting question:
What the media has never really challenged the news agency on is the true value of their stories in this Internet world. Those stories are out there for the world to read pretty darn fast on the Internet so why should a newspaper, television station, radio, even an Internet site pay a news agency for that same copy that is right there for free on the agency's own web site, or on web sites which are licensed for that material. By the time a newspaper, for instance, uses that material it's pretty stale.
Of course, if everybody stopped buying the AP, it would go out of business, which means it would not be available to post all those stories on the Web that make the AP's servie unnecessary to buy now. Sooner or later, there will probably be an Internet-based news service, which this writer hints at.
